By Richard Thomas Rating: C+ Like their Oregon Single Malt, the Oregon Rye Malt from Rogue Ales (famous for Rogue Dead Guy Ale) is not actually “beer made from whiskey.” Instead, it’s whiskey based on certain specialized grains particular to Rogue’s beer-making operation: their Dream Rye and their Dare & Risk Malted Barley. The rye is also malted, and the ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B Rye Whiskey was weakened by Prohibition and then done in by the Whiskey Bust of the 1970s, and is decline too with it the distilleries of Maryland. Thanks to the concurrent whiskey and craft Distilling booms, whiskey-making has returned to Maryland, and appropriately that return is based squarely on rye. Sagamore Spirit opened their plant ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Yesterday I was observing that even though craft whiskey has been a thing for at least a decade, there are almost no examples of a micro-distilled whiskey that is even several years old, let alone ten. In fact, the only one I can think of is Old Potrero Hotaling’s series, a periodic line of limited ...

By Richard Thomas During the more than a decade I spent living in Washington, DC, I learned to have one more reason to anticipate the coming of autumn: oysters were in season in the Chesapeake Bay. As I learned in year after year of gorging on oysters on the half shell, the best drink to pair with them is whisky. ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Anchor Distilling’s (now Hotaling & Co.) Old Portero is craft whiskey before there was craft whiskey, predating the movement we know today by almost two decades. However, it took the explosion of small distillers for Old Potrero to pursue brand expansions. After all, you need to know a market is there. Old Potrero 18th Century ...